Loving

 

All my life I have loved and been loved, but it wasn't until High school that I realized people could leave my life. 

I was four when we moved away from Champaign and I remember my mother saying that I said, "Well I have friends now. When are we going to move?" I wondered what she meant at the time. I barely knew Julie and Paul, the kids across the street, but I think what she really meant was that she didn't like moving.

My mother was born and raised in one house, in one town, and had one true love all her life. She died before he did, so she never really lost anyone.

We moved quite a bit after I was four, but my family was always there. As long as they were with me, I was home. I thought that the whole world was as stable as that until the first guy I really dated, broke up with me. It hurt. I had never had someone walk out of my life before.

Eventually I grew up, got married and had three children. In the movies that was happily ever after. In real life it was miscarriages, foster care and adoption before giving birth. It turned out my husband was seldom faithful, but I thought my children were forever.

And that turned out to be true.

Those children are mine forever. I will never stop loving them. They are not mine to keep, not objects to be owned, but they are human beings that are such a part of me that my love could go around the world a million times and still be as strong, or stronger than it ever was.

Nothing will ever change that.